10 Years of Helping

5 results arranged by date

Ten years ago I joined the staff of the Committee
to Protect Journalists to launch the Journalist Assistance program, an
initiative, as CPJ board member Gene
Roberts describes, developed to establish a standing direct response
mechanism for journalists facing threats and attacks. When I left the position
in 2009, many people asked me what case stood out the most.

Tags:

Somalia
was among the world's deadliest
countries
for journalists in 2009, the year I began working with CPJ's Journalist Assistance program. On June 7, two
gunmen shot Mukhtar Mohamed
Hirabe and Ahmed Omar Hashi, the director and news editor of the country's leading
independent station, Radio Shabelle. Hirabe died at
the scene. Hashi barely survived
and was hospitalized with wounds to the abdomen and right hand.

One of the most
rewarding parts of my job at Canadian Journalists
for Free Expression (CJFE) for the last eight years has been my work on our
Journalists
in Distress program. Through this program I have had quick glimpses into
the lives of hundreds of courageous journalists from countries all over the
world. Most of these journalists I will never meet, as I do this work sitting
at my desk in Toronto, trying to get details about where they have come from,
what danger they face, and what help they need.

Tags:

In
mid-2006, CPJ's Journalist
Assistance
program began sending regular remittances to the families of independent Cuban journalists
in prison. By CPJ's count, of the 29 journalists jailed during a massive crackdown in 2003, 24 were still in prison at the time--making
Cuba the world's second-worst jailer of journalists in the world. The
remittances, sent monthly, helped families cover travel expenses to the prisons--sometimes
two days away on shabby buses--and basic maintenance for the jailed editors and
reporters--ranging from food staples like rice and beans, to clothes, bowls and
spoons, to aspirin and specialized medications, all unavailable behind bars. At
the time, I was the Research Associate for the Americas program, and my
job was to contact families and catalog urgency and needs.

Tags:

By
the late '90s, the Committee to Protect Journalists was solving many of its
financial problems and building a strong list of dependable contributors. It
became possible to consider expanding our activities. Up to this point we were
fighting for a free press around the globe mainly by focusing attention on
governments that were imprisoning or killing journalists. We wrote letters to
hostile governments. We sent board and staff members abroad several times a
year to pressure officials into releasing jailed journalists. We published our
annual book, Attacks on the Press,
and announced our yearly lists of enemies of the press. All of this was vitally
important, of course. We were helping to free and protect journalists by
generating publicity about their cases.